


so quite new a thing

by twinagonies



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Explicit Fluff, M/M, Parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 03:03:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3794278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinagonies/pseuds/twinagonies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers has an epiphany; a party is thrown; a stripper is hired. </p><p>Or: twenty-somethings make questionable choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so quite new a thing

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to [ aurilly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly) for the eyes and ears and excellent thoughts. You really made this vastly better.
> 
> Title from ee cummings, "I like my body when it is with your"

 

“Hell no, man, I am not drinking any more of that shit,” Sam says.

“It is the nectar of the gods! The very water of life!” Thor’s every sentence is an announcement, a declaration, complete with exclamation mark. The sound of him fills up the apartment’s living room, which, though large by the city’s standard, doesn’t quite fit the growing party.

Tony doesn’t seem to notice, however, as he was ensconced in an oversized loveseat with his lab partner, Bruce; Jane’s on the end of the coffee table, leaning forward, and their engrossing conversation may as well be in ancient Sumerian for all anyone undestands.

“And I shall remain a lowly sinner, unworthy. I’ll take a beer, thank you,” Sam says, and accepts his bottle with aplomb. “Steve, though—he’ll drink the life-water. It’s his party.”

The liquid is clear, and thin as water—thinner, maybe, the way it sloshes against the sides of the tumbler. It tastes like clouds, somehow, but also like burning. Steve drinks half the glass in one go, and wheezes a cough. Thor thumps him on the back.

“Good show, my friend. Captain of captains!” 

“Thor, inside voices,” Jane says, and holds a finger up as if to say ‘wait’ but did not supply for how long. 

“I think we’re getting drunk Thor tonight,” Pepper says.

“How can you tell?” Sam asks.

“He’ll keep filling up cups all night long,” Steve says. “You know. Helpful.”

“Also, the exclamation points come out,” Pepper says with a smile. 

“Think they’ll be at this all night?” Sam says, nodding toward the science trio. 

“Oh, certainly not—a few more drinks and they’ll make us listen to them, instead of quarantining themselves on that thing,” Pepper says. Her affection is plain on her softened face, if inexplicable. 

“Let em be,” Steve says. “It’s just a low key thing. Let ‘em enjoy themselves.”

“Oh.” Pepper’s wince is somehow both knowing and amused. “Just you wait. Captain.”

Steve groans. “How long’s that gonna last?”

“All night long, buddy.” Sam claps him on the back.

“Captain of captains! We must continue our celebration,” Thor pronounces and fills Steve’s cup back to the brim with a ladle. He lays a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder and shakes them closer together. “I am honored that you have shared such a personal revelation. So tonight, we drink. To you.”

He raises his cup. “To Steve!”

The party, only half-begun, lift their drinks and cheers. Steve stares down into his glass, into the clear liquid that smells like bad choices.

“Do I have to?”

 

+

 

The story was this: Steve Rogers, graduate student and teaching assistant at New York University, had, until age twenty-five (minus a few weeks), never quite realized something about himself. All the memories that should have long ago indicated something of this sort—memories of boys and men and one boy in particular and one memory in particular—struck him one day with full epiphanic force.

This epiphany was, basically, that Steve was attracted to men. 

In all honesty, he should have known sooner. High school had been a strange time for him—skinny as a noodle, with the bark of a Rottweiler and bite of a mini-pin, he wasn’t really attracting anyone at all, and buried his own attraction under the sheer abrasion of his personality. College was maybe more “normal,” whatever that meant; a string of girlfriends that, other than maybe Peggy, proved to be more of a bandaid to a lifetime’s worth of loneliness (give or take three years) more than a genuine connection. 

Not that this changed any of that. 

The very minute of it, this revelation beyond anything, he watched a dude, tight black skinny jeans and fitted henley and brown loose hair, laugh his way through “Take On Me.” It was the laugh, maybe, or the jeans. Or maybe the unmistakable presence of his person on stage, filling up the little bar that crowded for karaoke ever Wednesday. No what caused it, the force of it pushed deep in his gut, and his inexplicable attraction demanded to be noticed, staking a claim on his attention after years of neglect. 

Want. Steve wanted him.

And, very Steve of him, he decided with full moral conviction not to hide this for a second; or maybe it was the tequila that spoke. Still, he heard himself say, “Guys, I’m bi,” and his friends said, “what, you’re leaving already?” and he said, “No, I’m bi, I’m into guys,” and “Awesome,” and “great!” and “how long have you known?”

To which he had replied, “I just figured it out. Like, right now.”

Maybe it was the lateness of the hour—maybe the collective intoxication—but when Tony started laughing, Sam couldn’t help but giggle, and Pepper was pressing the back of her hand to her lips to suppress a smile. 

Anyway, the story was this: Steve Rogers figured out he was bi, and Tony threw him a “happy birthday/gay revelation” party.

 

+

 

They blindfold him in the center of the room. He’s just buzzed enough to plop down where they sit him, but the total darkness sharpens his other senses. He hears the door opening and closing to introduce a new player in whatever game Tony thought they were playing. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and he folds them just-so before feeling like a nervous schoolboy. Someone snorts a laugh, and Steve is suddenly, inexorably worried.

Tony wouldn’t.

Tony would, but Steve wishes he wouldn’t.

The giggles give it away. First Pepper and Jane and then their friend Darcy, whose laugh becomes an outright cackle before she wolf-whistles. Steve assumes it’s her; no one else he knows has that particular skill. The shriek of it makes him flinch. 

The girls are cheering, and the dudes clapping, with laughs half-forced to cover up their embarrassment. 

“So, Captain, here’s your birthday present—”

“—Tony,” he starts, head turned where he thinks Tony might be, but Tony’s not one to be interrupted.

“And really, now you can’t say I never got you anything. Now this present…” He makes the word lascivious, drawn out into Steve’s ear. “…isn’t really to my taste. So just remember that in the dedication of your famous artist memoirs one day: for Tony, a noble, selfless, giving, thoughtful, objectively beautiful, stand-up guy, a prince among men—what? Stop that, I’m just making it more dramatic, stop hitting me with that—"

Steve laughs, but waits, waits. The bass thrums against the backs of his thighs, and he can feel without feeling someone moving around him. It’s the attention, he thinks—the sound of voices, cheery and drunk and maybe a little lecherous.

He knows what’s coming, but still, when the blindfold slips off and his first sight is this guy in all black ripping his shirt off, his mouth runs ahead of him. “Oh, no,” he says.

The stripper suppresses a laugh, but continues to revolve around him, hips leading his taut body in circles within circles.

He has great arms, Steve has to admit. 

Still, he’s half-cringing, not sure where to look—and oh, there’s an ass in his face. It’s a very nice ass, but as Steve has not yet become accustomed to—the male-on-male gaze, if you will, the position is less intentionally sexy and more, well, awkward. 

He smiles on. 

The stripper drops into plank position and makes sweet, tender love to the floor.

 _This is fine_ , he thinks. Even in his head it sounds like the lie it is. 

Tony shoots his drink and shoots Steve twin guns with his index fingers. It’s the thought, he supposes, and smiles brightly. He tries to meet Sam’s eye, but his friend just laughs outright in his face. Bruce won’t look at him either; he can’t keep from breaking into laughter whenever the stripper swivels his hips in the general direction of the audience. And Thor’s just happy. 

He should be looking at the dude, really he should. 

The stripper—dancer, right? Or something?—is peeling off his leather pants with far more proficiency than Steve imagined possible. Truly a feat of modern ingenuity, this dance. 

It’s when he bounds up, pants in hand, and throws them over Steve’s head, that Steve gets a good look at the stranger hired to introduce him to this new dimension of his sexuality.

His mind says “it’s uncanny,” and that word runs away in his head, before he gets why. His mostly naked—save an ass-clinging navy pair of what would generously be called briefs, but were properly panties—stripper writhed upright, abs snaking their way in a sine curve of undulating flesh, but his face was impassive, eyes half-lidded and dark in the half-lit apartment, lips parted wetly. But he catches Steve watching (finally watching, his deliberate inattention possibly noticed) and lifts an eyebrow, tongue smoothing out his lower lip, and Steve must go wide-eyed because he smirks.

It’s the smirk that clicks; that turns “uncanny” into “no fuckin way.” 

Steve thinks _Bucky?_ But, thank God, the disconnect between his mouth and head works in his favor for once. That would be crazy, he knows, but Steve watches the guy’s face, looking for someone he wanted to see.

Still he must look startled, since his stripper backs off, stuttering half a beat around the coffee table before sidling his way back toward Steve.

Steve swallows. The stranger’s fingertips trace the arms, the back of the chair, never touching. The crackle of heat jumps between their skin.  

Rationalizations come quick—passing familiarity and projections of old desire and the grand upheaval of his own sense of self, the minor violence of epiphany—but the thought can’t be banished.

Bucky. God, what he wouldn’t do to see him again.

 

 

+

 

The story is this: when Steve Rogers entered middle school, he met and befriended one Bucky Barnes (or rather, Bucky took one look at Steve Rogers, holding two skinny fists up against the biggest meanest bully of the schoolyard, and thought, ‘this is my new best friend, forever and ever, amen’). It was the best three years of his life, from one perspective. Never since has he had such a hard and fast friendship; nothing compared, not his new friends, not his girlfriends, no one. Ten years after he last saw Bucky—a moment both burned into and suppressed by his mind until a few weeks previous—and in a better, more sober frame of mind, he could guess why he’s projecting all of his latent feelings and realizations onto the hot stripper who shared (probably) nothing more than hair and eye color—and maybe a smirk—with his old friend. Instead, he tells himself he’s crazy, and ignores it—and maybe this is somewhat of a pattern in his life.

 

+

 

After the—exotic dancer, Steve prompts himself—completes his routine and half-dressed himself (and really, that he managed to both get out of and back into leather pants gracefully justifies the “dancer” label even more so than the _extreme_ contortions and gyrations of his hips and spine), Tony invites him to stay. Before Steve can think to second the invitation, just to be polite, Thor does it for him.

“Friend, what dancing! Truly you move like one divested of bones. Come, drink with us! I must fill you with the water of life!” Thor gestures his way with yet another glass, but the dancer pushes it away.

“Oh, never while I’m working. Thanks though. I really appreciate it.” He pushes his longish hair behind one ear. Somehow, when he’s not dancing, not performing, he’s a little sheepish—not what Steve would have expected for someone so comfortable in his (unclothed) body. 

“I regret you cannot imbibe with us, but I respect your choices,” Thor announces. “Thank you for the gift of your self-expression!”

“He’s in women’s studies,” Steve supplies. 

 “He’s a real interesting guy, I’ll give you that,” the guy says. “This is your birthday party, right?”

“Yeah—“ Steve starts.

“But more importantly, his big gay revelation party—”

“—Is a phrase that Tony really likes,” Steve finishes for him. “Even though I’m bi.”

The guy gives a deep, impressed nod, his smile coming and going as he attempts to suppress it. 

“I see.”

“So, stay, and help us celebrate Steve’s newfound desire to take it up the ass.”

“Jesus Christ, Tony.” Steve lets his head fall back. He considers the ceiling.

“You just came out?”

“A couple weeks ago.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Kind of had a…sudden realization.” 

That tongue (that damn tongue) makes another appearance as the dude considers him, eyes him up and down while leaning back. He huffs a laugh to the side. 

“Well, in my defense, I think I was repressing a lot of things,” Steve says. “I don’t know, I’m an artist, you know, and I feel like I should have known?”

“I doubt you’ll have a problem,” he says, apropos of—something. “You know, I’ll stay and have a drink.” 

Must be a glutton for secondhand embarrassment, because that’s all Steve’s putting off. But there they are. 

 

+

 

Two drinks in, the apartment’s packed, and Steve’s still chatting up his stripper. More of Tony’s friends have shown up, mostly no one Steve knows. His friend list consists only of college people and their friends. 

For such a big city, it’s kind of small town.

“Have you ever considered modeling for a figure drawing class?” It’s the first thing that he can think of to ask when he returns with new drinks, and God, it’s not the worst thing he could have said, but maybe it is. And now he has to stick with it.

“What?”

“Art modeling? I don’t know, we just always need models. Somehow people always flake out on us.”

“You’re serious? How much you gonna pay me to sit around naked?”

“I mean, it pays ok, and you don’t have to be naked-naked, just hold a pose. They’re just learning, you know, and any body helps. God, they’re so bad, though. And really you’d be doing me a favor—one more cancellation and I’ll be stripping in front of the class—not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s a valid life choice, I mean.” He tries to recover, but his friend the recently naked dude is laughing too hard to let him. “Jesus Christ, I promise I’m not trying to insult you—I just think—you seem very comfortable without clothes on?” 

And the stripper laughs on and on.

“Oh, fuck me,” Steve says.

“Never on the first date,” Leather Pants says and lifts his cup to cheers. 

 

+

 

Three drinks in, the buzz pulling higher and the space crowding smaller, Steve’s switches to water. Less out of good sense and more out of a need for a physical object between them, a cup to keep his hands from reaching out and pulling them together.Also, Thor’s water of life might be slowly killing him; it goes down easy, too easy, like air.

“So, what’s the narrative with your outfit?” Steve feels like he’s shouting. Maybe he is shouting. Also, what do you say to the childhood-friend-lookalike stripper with whom you really, really want to make conversation?

“It’s like, gay assassin chic?” He searches the ceiling for a better explanation. “Honestly, no one’s asked before.”

“Yeah, I mean…I guess the leather is self-explanatory.” 

Steve didn’t mean to make a joke—it was just something to say, really—but he can’t help but feel lucky when the guy bursts out laughing. 

“No, of course, yeah.” He rubs one hand over his face. “I mean—you should see some of these parties—I think the leather maybe explains too much.”

Steve’s deer-in-the-headlights look pulls a laugh from his new friend, and Steve figures he’s not doing too bad for his first intentional act of same-sex flirtation. It’s like an experiment; can he act like a normal attractive-and-attracted person? Can he chat up a nice-looking dude? He is, surprisingly enough, not crashing and burning. It’s enough to keep him going.

“So, if I can ask—“ he pauses, but the guy gives him the nod, so he goes ahead. “How’d you get into dancing?”

He laughs. “Very politic of you, dancing. No, yeah, I’m an actual cliche.” His shoulders are up by his ears in an exaggerated pose, and his little-kid grin prompts Steve to keep going.

“Yeah? How so?”

The guy leans in, dark eyes flashing and wicked, as if they’re sharing a joke no one else could get. He looks like he’s about to whisper, but he ends up shouting over the music. “Stripping for school.”

Steve laughs in his face, and he laughs back. “No.”

“Yeah, no, I’m serious! I’m actually in law school.” 

“Where?”

“Columbia! It’s fucking expensive as shit!” Maybe he hadn’t meant to reveal that, but they are, between them, quite sufficiently lubricated; more talk, and they’d be tumbling down the rabbit hole of dreams and desires and long-standing emotional baggage.

The party’s loud, music getting louder; they’re pushed together in the kitchen and Steve watches him down half a cup of Thor’s mystery elixir. This isn’t so bad—maybe it’s the booze. Maybe it’s that this guy’s a stranger who looks, and feels, like a friend, and one who Steve’s pretty sure is not going to do anything because he was _paid_ ****to be here, but it’s easy, talking with him. Flirting, a little. He’s friendly, and cute, and giving in conversation, a trait Steve secretly prizes above all the rest.

“Can I ask something?”

“Shoot.”

“You didn’t look like you really enjoyed the dance. You looked...” He trails off, winces. 

Steve laughs; his reply is a half-truth. “It’s not you. I get self-conscious with an audience, you know?”

“I don’t actually,” he says. “It’s why I’m good at this.”

“And modest,” Steve says. 

The guy just laughs. His thumb pops up to his mouth; his teeth sink in for a moment before licking the skin. He catches Steve watching his mouth and grins.

“Wanna try again?” 

 

+

 

Steve’s in another chair, and nervous anticipation returns full force. It’s different, though, newer. He’s not part of the performance any more, just the audience, and the feeling shifts from public and awkward to intimate, intoxicating. 

The guy’s got a glint in his eye, and his tongue between his teeth—all night long, that tongue won’t stay inside its natural confines whenever he looks at Steve, damn thing.

“Keep your hands to yourself, alright? No touching.”

“Yeah, no, of course.”

“Only real rule.”  

A single lamp casts a low glow in the bedroom, yellow on cream walls, yellow on red curtains, yellow on a scarlet blanket covering the bed, warm light creeping up from below. His eyes are dark in this light and Steve feels lost in them. 

The raucous party beyond the thin door pounds on in music and chatter, but, in the stretching shadows, it’s just the two of them, Steve with hands that he’s never known where to put, Bucky scrolling through someone else’s iTunes, looking up every few seconds to catch Steve’s eye.

“How do feel about Marvin Gaye?”

 _Sam’s favorite_ , he thinks.

“Fine, I guess?” He’s more preoccupied with his hands, no touching, no touching, so he slides them behind the chair and grips his wrists. His back arches, but the tight hold comforts, somehow, even as his pulse speeds up.

The beat begins. On the one hand, sure, it’s a sexy song; the definition of sexy songs. It’s also ridiculous, and pulls a laugh from Steve before he thinks. 

“Sure, you’re laughing now,” Bucky says. “But just you wait.”

Steve wants to answer, but that tongue makes an appearance, and he’s reminded, in a most visceral fashion, of the want that demands to be known, to be recognized. 

Bucky’s hips sway, and his shirt lands on the floor for the second time tonight. 

“Besides—sounds like you need a little sexual healing,” and it’s such a terrible line that Steve snorts. 

Bucky (not Bucky, not Bucky, but damn if he can stop thinking it) seems to take that as a challenge.

 

+

 

 _Bucky_ , he thinks, but he asks instead, “What can I call you?”

The hand on his neck squeezes and his gut clenches in response. The darkness, the beat, the low pulse of his blood, and he’s awash in pure feeling, desire. He’s mixing it up in his head, past and present. 

“Call me whatever you want—it’s your birthday, Cap,” Bucky’s smirk is dangerous, heady, intoxicating. Steve wants to drown in it. The hand smooths down his neck to the front of his chest.

Bucky circles him, drops to a couch, bends up slow, slow, never breaking eye contact. Steve wants to laugh at the music, but Bucky makes it serious—there’s no room for levity in the breathless line of force that exists between them, low in their stomachs.

That line becomes a tether as Bucky circles him, revolves about him, twisting and writhing his body in constant motion, close but never close enough. He’s in an unsteady orbit, and Steve watches him, head turning with Bucky’s movement. As gorgeous as Bucky’s shirtless chest is, Steve can’t look away from his face. 

“Tell me how I’m doing, Cap,” he says. 

Steve swallows. Bucky body rolls his abs in Steve’s face, and no matter how much baseball as he thinks of, his growing problem becomes a pressing condition.

“You’re a really good dancer.” He cringes inside.

“I know.”

One finger trails down his neck, tracing his Adam’s apple, and Steve can’t help a gulp. His hands clutch at his wrists, and though his body tenses from the contact, he refuses to move. 

“So good, so good for me,” Bucky whispers in Steve’s ear.

Bucky straddles him, so close their breath intermingles; the proximity is too much, and Steve’s breath hitches. Bucky reaches for him, fingers tracing the thick ridge of his briefs. Just as his finger breaches the tight fit of the fabric against skin, he pauses and catches Steve’s eye.

“This ok?” 

Steve waits a heartbeat, then two; his voice won’t come so his nod suffices, until he chokes out a breathy “yes” that’s overeager to his ear. No room for shame here though—his skin burns with desire, and the blush of his neck could only be from Bucky’s hips, bucking up into him.

He hears himself say yes and yes and yes; once started, he can’t seem to stop.

Behind the chair, Steve’s fingers dig bruises into his wrists. Bucky’s searching fingers, white-cold-hot against his yearning flesh, make his back arch, his breath catch; still, he doesn’t let go.

It’s when he’s in Bucky’s hand that the world narrow to a pinpoint of touch-sensation. His eyes glaze over; closed or open, he can’t tell, lost to exquisite touch. 

Still, he doesn’t let go.

One hand around him, the other on his chest, and Bucky talks low, almost a moan, into Steve’s ear. His words form a rhythm with his hand, and Steve’s lost in it, the sense-synchronization of mouth and hand. 

“Is this how you like it? You’re so hard for me, you want more?”

Steve’s voice is a whispered string of yesses. Bucky’s hand in firm but gentle around him, perfect rhythm from a perfect dancer. Steve wants to thrust up, up, but Bucky’s hips hold him down; instead it’s jut the perfect motion of hand over flesh, over and over, the rush of blood so hard it almost hurts. 

It’s building deep in his spine, as much from the feel of someone else’s hand on him as from the circumstance—the novel eroticism of this guy on top of him, the writhing suggestion of his body, the look of smug glee on his face every time Steve moans another breathy yes. 

“Does this feel good? Such a good boy, are you gonna come for me baby?”

It’s nothing Steve hasn’t heard before, but here and now, he’s hearing it from this hot-as-shit guy, with a dense crowd just outside the locked door. Everything’s heightened, his skin, his blood, the sound of Bucky moaning into his ear with the motion of his hand. 

His grip is perfect, sliding up and around him in a practiced motion, tight about the head. His thumb finds that perfect spot every time, at that tight knot of skin. This won’t last long, not with Bucky asking, to the point of meaninglessness, “Will you come for me?”

He will, in fact.

Their lips are close, so close, and Steve feels every moan as a breath on his lips. His fingers dig into the tendons of his wrists, light pain delaying the inevitable for just a few moments more. But Bucky squeezes his head just so, and he groans with it.

“Yes, yes, come for me, sweetheart, come on,” Bucky says into Steve’s skin. His mouth is pressed just below the corner of Steve’s jaw, and Steve feels the words more than hears them, deep in his rushing, pulsing blood. 

“Please,” Steve says, on the verge.

Bucky’s hand disappears from his chest, and Bucky’s mouth is sucking on his skin and Bucky’s hand is moving fast, faster, harder, squeezing just right, better than anyone, better than his own hand, and those lips are pulling the blood up to his skin. It’s the scrape of teeth that pushes him over, the barest suggestion of a bite—and Steve’s gone, pulsing, pulsing, feeling his body empty itself in pure cathartic bliss. 

His breath’s heavy, probably heated, but Bucky’s not moving, so neither does he. 

There’s a handkerchief, pulled out of seeming nowhere (but probably a leather pants pocket), holding the remains of their endeavor. Steve doesn’t know what to say, but Bucky trashes the mess before he generate any semblance of thought. 

“You know, you can let go now,” he hears. 

“What?” His voice is a thick sludge.

Hands smooth down his arms, and Bucky presses forward to find Steve’s wrists clasped hard like fetters behind the chair. His hands are coaxed open, and it’s the release after release that finally undoes him. He slumps in the chair, boneless, held upright only by the strength of Bucky’s thighs.

“Just let go.” 

 

+

 

The story is this: when Steve was fifteen, Bucky Barnes moved away.

Bucky Barnes was the center of Steve’s world, at fifteen. Bucky Barnes, at the same time, orbited around Steve Rogers, though Steve never saw it—instead he saw Bucky as everything he wasn’t. Bucky was taller, bigger, growing into himself with rare grace; he was handsome where Steve was bony, confident where Steve was nervous, and charming where Steve was angry. And Bucky…Well, who knows what he saw in Steve, but they were like paper labels stuck together. Peel them apart, and pieces are left behind forever.

The night Bucky Barnes left, they snuck out to a rooftop and watched the handful of stars visible in the Brooklyn sky. The moon was bright; the light pollution low. Bucky’s face was shadowed. What Steve remembered best was the small patch of light that caught his left eye as he leaned in close. 

“You never know when we’ll see each other again,” Bucky had said.

Truer than they’d realized.

“I just—I don’t wanna leave, Stevie.”

They shared that sentiment.

“I have to, just once,” Bucky had said, and that night somehow preserved him in amber, while the moment of departure was half-forgotten—fully repressed—for all of high school, plus some years before resurging, perfectly preserved, in a moment of crisis. The mind is a funny thing.

 

+

 

Bucky hangs up Steve’s phone and passes it back. The party’s slower now, past two AM, but still going strong; Bucky—no, the dancer, whose name Steve still doesn’t know, Jesus Christ—is calling it a night.

“Thanks, ride’s on her way. Were you serious about modeling?” He relaxes against a wall, and it’s a perfect pose, head tilted to one side, muscles loose in invitation. 

“Yeah—we do actually need models, like all the time. I’m at NYC, in case you wanna take me up on it.” 

“You got a name, or should I just ask for the good Captain?” His eyebrow waggle is a thing of power, the way it tugs the corners of Steve’s lips up at the smallest motion. It’s not the waggle, but the charm; the charming waggle. 

This is maybe how Steve knows he’s fucked—his post-coital loose limbs and thoughts gain extra lubrication from the not inconsiderable boozy schmooze of the evening, leading to phrases like “charming waggle” orbiting his thoughts. It’s all he can do not to say it aloud. 

“Steve, Steve Rogers,” he says instead. 

The guy ducks his head and sucks on the pad of one thumb. A nervous habit, maybe, and Steve would gladly suck on any part of him to help him relax. 

His better half vetoes that thought of saying that out loud.

“Nice to meet you, Steve,” he says, voice thick in the moment. His eyes are bright when he fixes them on Steve. 

Steve’s about to ask for a name in return, but the moment’s lost—he’s out the door, and Steve’s delayed reaction is nothing more than a forlorn “Bye?” as the door shuts on his back.

Before he can mope, really and truly mope, he’s pulled back in the party—calls for shots abound.

“Congrats on the gay thing!” someone yells his way.

“I’m bi!” he yells back, but takes the shot anyway. 

Tony’s thrown an arm around his shoulders. “You know, I’d say this is a good party. Probably the best gay revelation party that’s ever been thrown.”

Steve feels like a train hit him. His mind is half with the guy who just left, and it takes him a second to formulate a response. “Tony, it’s been an experience.” 

“He was pretty hot, right? I tried to imagine what I would like, if dudes were on the table.”

Steve catches a laugh as it’s escaping, and chokes it into a cough. “No, yeah, that was…thoughtful.”

“Oh, I know, I’m very considerate of other people” he says. They stare at each other for a second, and Steve wills his face not to crack. It seems he’s passed some sort of test, as Tony nods after a second and pulls him to the center of the room. 

Tony raises his glass and yells into the packed crowd. “Let’s hear it for Steve! Happy birthday, oh Captain my Captain, and many congrats on your first foray into sexual misadventure with the hot leather daddy! May every other encounter end as _happily_ as this one.”

Steve ignores the emphasis. 

The ensuing cheers is sloppy, but enthusiastic; the last of Thor’s life-water lay pooled under the table, a true and fortunate party foul. Thor is nowhere to be seen. Jane looks unconcerned, so it’s probably fine. 

Sam’s heavy-lidded but laughing at a girl with blonde curls. 

Pepper’s pulled Tony away for a moment; they’re nuzzled in a corner, eye to eye. They’re always sweeter when no one can see.

He has good friends.

The events of the evening are maybe too much to think about. He’ll think about it tomorrow.

He pulls Tony out of the corner and raises another toast. “To this guy! To Tony!” And slaps him hard on the chest. 

The apartment drinks and cheers with him, and they’ll all regret it later in the grand fashion of twenty-somethings. 

It is, he has to admit, a great party.

 

+

 

The Saturday that followed is rough, rough.  

2pm brunch hadn’t seemed ambitious when they made the reservation, but as the party trickles in, they all seem to have ridden the struggle bus over. 

“What the fuck was in that shit,” Tony moans.

“I knew better, and I still drank it,” Jane groans.

“I mean, I’ve got a headache, but that beer treated me just fine,” Sam chirps brightly.

They all throw their napkins in his face and wince at his resounding laugh. 

“Thor coming?” Steve manages to ask. He’s slumped over, head in one hand. That coffee can’t come soon enough.

“On his way. He would up naked in Central Park somehow.”

“Makes sense,” he says. He tries to nod. Movement of any kind just hurts.

After a round of mostly silent coffees (mostly silent, since Sam seemed determined to narrate his surroundings just to fuck with the lot of them), followed by ruthless gorging on various combinations of eggs and bread and cheese, sometimes with an additional meat product, everyone pulls together to mess with Steve.

“So, uh, that happened,” Sam says. 

“Nope,” Steve says.

“Really, nothing? Come on, what happened. We all saw you disappear into that room,” Jane digs a little. She’s nosy; she means well.

“Thanks to me, I might add,” Tony adds.

“Yes, yes, we know dear.” Pepper shushes him. “But?”

“No, nothing happened,” and if his voice is a little high, only everybody at the table can tell. 

“You’re the worst liar,” Sam says.

“He was nice, that’s all.”

“Yeah, nice to your dick, maybe,” a voice says from a phone. It’s…surprisingly accurate, but Steve changes the subject.

“Is Darcy on speaker phone?”

“No?” And maybe Jane’s an even worse liar than Steve.

 

+

 

Steve gets a text the day after: _u serious about needing a model_

He stares at it for some time. He panics for a minute, making sure his Read Receipts are off—because God, but he needs time to compose a reply. Like the nerd he is, and always will be, he writes it out before replying.

_Yeah, still need one Thursday afternoon if you’re free_

He debates whether to add an emoji at the end, but leaves it off for fear of being overeager. The inclusion of the comma, he’d admit to no one, takes him longer than anything else. 

Texting is horrible, no matter the gender. Who knows what this guy wants, anyway? Steve had been genuine in his offer, and made it with no hope or expectation; still—that had happened, and now this dude was contacting him. 

God, Thursday is so far away.

 

+

 

His newest model, lately his first stripper, and more importantly, first male sexual partner (again, Jesus Christ, that actually happened), is in the middle of his art room. 

Again, mostly naked. This time his briefs appear to be actual briefs, a dark heather grey. In the bright summer light that filters through the windows, his skin looks impossibly smooth. 

He must wax, Steve thinks. Then shakes his head. Right, this is the class he’s supposed to be teaching.

They’re halfway through their long-form drawing class, a series of warmups followed by an hour long session. His new—friend lounges on a couch for the longest pose, all perfect relaxation except an extended leg, a beautiful line from any position. 

The air in the room clings, warm on his skin. It’s too warm, he thinks, walking around his sleepy students, but it’s worth it for the comfort of the guest.

Steve circles the room, trying not to think of the lounging man in the middle as a fixed point around which he revolves. He’s professional, as best he can be. It’s a drawing class, and try as he does, it’s hard to ignore the model, especially as the model won’t stop watching him. 

“No, it looks good Mindy. Take a look at the proportions between his hands and his face. That should help keep things feeling balanced.” 

Walking behind his students, he keeps his face blank, placid—tries to, at least. It doesn’t help that everywhere he looks, the center of the room spooling outward, is Bucky, image after fragmented image of Bucky. 

It’s nerve-wracking, to be frank, and Steve’s traitor mind keeps supplying little bits of memory whenever he thinks of something else.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he hears in his head, and he flinches a little at the stab of sharp heat that begins in his lower back and spreads outward. He’s going insane, he’s sure of it—his skin on fire in the overheated room, mouth dry. He clears his throat, coughs like through smoke. 

“Ok, you guys, don’t forget our lessons about negative space,” he says, projecting to the room. Almost over. “Try and see the shapes around him.” Steve sees that space, the space between his thighs that had pinned him to the chair before, during, and after the hottest orgasm of his life, and the loop made by his loose fingers, fingers Steve avoided looking at each moment. 

What a nightmare. 

 

+

 

“James Barnes,” he says.

“Bucky?” 

“You know, it’s funny—no one’s called me Bucky in a decade,” he says.

He asked for coffee, after class ended; he hung around, like he wanted to talk. Steve has been trying not to read anything into it, but has mostly been failing. He’s reading volumes into it now, many volumes, a million different narratives of why, exactly, this guy has stayed.

But then he says that. It was the thought that Steve couldn’t let go, the possibility that this was, in fact, his first friend and first kiss and maybe first crush, though he’s never admitted that, even to himself. And suddenly, it’s justified.

“What,” is what he says, however, even as his intuition screams ‘I knew it!’ at his better sense. 

“After we moved, I just didn’t tell anyone about it, and I’ve been James ever since,” Bucky says. 

Steve’s astonished, without words—it’s been a roller coaster of a week, and he’s not quite caught up.  

“Bucky,” Steve says, and it’s finally, finally confirmed with a nod. Not a rejection, not a gilded lie—and boy, affirmation will do wonders for the soul. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course, Steve. Yeah, I remember you. It’s why I came today.” He bites his thumb. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

Steve’s stuck where he stands. Bucky’s nose scrunches up. 

“So, why ‘Captain?’” 

“What?” he repeats.

“Your friends—they were all calling you Captain.”

Steve laughs, more at himself than anything else. It’s at least a reprieve from his brain-breaking realization. “Oh, Sam found this old yearbook of mine. I was, uh, Captain of the Art Club.”

“Cute,” Bucky says. “I don’t remember an art club?”

Well, he started this story. It must be finished. “Yeah, I was the only member.”

“Oh shit, that’s sad,” and Bucky laughs in his face.

“Yeah, and I had this army fixation—I don’t know, when the time for pictures came, I asked that they label me Captain Steve Rogers, and they did.” Humiliation is good for soul, he supposes. Therapeutic. Cleansing. “But, that’s all in the past, so, you know. I’m still Steve.”

“Sure, but I’m never calling you anything else. Cap’n.” He swallows the last syllable, makes it a joke with his flashing smile. 

“Please, no.”

Bucky chews on the pad of his thumb and leans forward. “I don’t know, maybe you’ll start to like it.” 

His intent is clear. His mouth around his thumb is stretched in a grin; his eyes are falling half-closed, just little slivers of blue that pull you into dark depths. When he pulls his hand back, his thumb is replaces by that warm pink tongue, and Steve glances it at with the intention to look away—but doesn’t.

It’s unbearable. His blood rushes away. The ache of his body turns sharp, like the scrape of teeth, and he breaks away. 

The reminder, that memory in his body of—last weekend, that’s what wakes him up. It’s a thing he wanted to say, all week long, or ask.

“Tony—paid you for…?” It’s a question he can’t quite formulate, and he lets the silence speak for him. 

Bucky’s eyebrows come together in confusion before opening in understanding. He lets Steve wait, though, grinning open-mouthed and shifting where he stands—to tell the truth, almost a gleeful squirm at Steve’s nervous anticipation. 

“He paid for the dance. Helping you out was free,” Bucky says, all smirk and tongue. “My choice.”

“Just wanted to check. I didn’t want to—assume anything,” Steve tries. He really does. “It was. Something.”

Bucky scratches his head.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry about nothing, pal.” Something occurs to him, and he looks too pleased with himself not to say it. “All strictly legal, and I can say that—because I’m going to be a lawyer.” 

“Oh God,” Steve groans.

Bucky cackles, and it shouldn’t be as attractive as it is, but he’s just so happy with himself that Steve wants to be happy with him. 

It’s a moment. It’s the moment where these two people, the Bucky of his memories and the guy who’d ushered him into sexually active bisexuality, finally converge into a whole, where the separate figures in his mind become one. 

“You know what, Bucky?” This is the story worth telling, he thinks. 

“What’s that?” He’s guarded, sensitive; he looks the way Steve feels, but Steve presses on. 

“You know how that party was for—the ‘gay revelation’ thing?”

“Even though you’re bi,” Bucky says.

“Even though, yeah.” Steve smiles at his good memory. It’s nice to feel heard. “I guess I had some…feelings I hadn’t really acknowledged.”

“Like the feeling of your dick in my hand,” but as soon as he says it, Bucky’s half-embarrassed and ducks his head, laughing at himself. 

“Kinda like that,” Steve grins, “except it was more like the feeling of my best friend kissing me when I was fifteen.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky says and winces hard. 

“You kissed me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” 

The silence creeps up, and he lets it. Bucky looks at everything but Steve, and Steve watches him, unsure of anything and everything. 

“You kissed me, and left. Moved away. And you didn’t call.” Though he’ll never admit it, part of Steve revels in having the upper hand here.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s face is pained, forehead scrunched up and wrinkled, and he only glances Steve’s way before looking away. “I, uh, I’ve been thinking about that for years, honestly. I just had to—you don’t—God, Steve, you don’t know what you did to me back then. I had to do it once before I left. You pissed at me?”

“No, it’s been a decade—that would be silly.” It would be, which is why Steve will never admit to the small, so small, part of him that was, in fact, a little pissed. But again—so small. “Also, I’m just happy to know I’m not crazy, and you know, projecting my latent feelings for my old friend onto the first stripper I see.”

“Sorry,” Bucky interrupts him, “sorry. I panicked—and you don’t know who you’re gonna get at those things. I’m not saying it’s dangerous or anything, but I just—I try to keep those lives separate, you know? I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Steve shakes his head. “I can’t believe you kissed me.”

Somehow, that’s the thing he’s stuck on.

“Well, I’ve done more than that now, so.” Bucky bites his lip, and the sight of it, together with the memory, keeps his blood rushing south.

“I feel like I should repay the favor.” He says it because it’s something to say, but it feels true when he hears himself. 

“Not on the first date, you know,” Bucky says. He has an irrepressible grin on his face, open mouthed, and that damn tongue won’t stay still, running across his bottom lip into the pocket of his cheek. It’s all Steve can do not to jump him right there, tackle him to the ground in a flurry of mussed canvas and smudged charcoal. There’s an excited flutter in his chest, like everything he never acknowledged was suddenly real, and somehow so much better than he could have imagined. 

“Yeah? What about the third?” They’re grinning at each other like idiots now, leaning toward each other against the wall, the gravity of two bodies pulling them close but not yet meeting. They know where this is headed, and somehow, the anticipation is worth it all. 

“I figure that’s a pretty good bet, but you’ll have to take me out and see.” 

 

+

 

After dinner that night, Steve stops them outside his apartment building.

“Just to check—was this the first date or the second? In your opinion.” He’s trying, really struggling, not to appear overeager. 

“Oh, please, I’m counting this as three,” Bucky says, and walks Steve up his stairs, mouth-to-mouth, and thank God, because he doesn’t think he can hold back any longer. 

 

+

 

“How did you not recognize me?” The question pops into Steve’s head, and he says it against the skin of Bucky’s thigh. 

“Are you serious? You were all of five foot nothing and a high screechy voice. Now you’re—this.” Bucky’s propped up against the headboard of Steve’s bed, thighs spread with Steve between them. He runs a hand through Steve’s hair, and Steve pushes into the touch.

“I don’t look _that_ different.” He knows it’s not true, but he likes to protest. 

“They kept calling you Captain, and I thought you were a fireman.”

“Oh, be quiet. I’m trying to work here.” To punctuate his statement, he sucks a hickey into Bucky’s hip. The answering groan runs down his spine, and it’s all he can do not to thrust into the mattress. This is about Bucky, he reminds himself. Reciprocity. 

“Whatever you say, Stevie. Just thank our lucky stars, yeah?” The best part of this, maybe, is how Bucky’s breath hitches, turns shallow, and how Steve can hear his normal air of assurance interrupted by desire. The best part of this is watching him come undone.

“Mmmphhh,” Steve hums around the head of his dick. 

“You know you’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full,” Bucky says, but it’s the last complete sentence he gets out for a nice long while. 

 

+

 

The story is this: Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers have the best “how we met story.” In fact, they have two. Both are told during their wedding weekend, but one is severely edited for the rehearsal dinner; in this story, Bucky “dances” with Steve before either of them recognize each other. It’s a nice thought, but a truer version (though not yet wholly factual—they both deny what everyone suspects inside that dark bedroom) is saved for after the reception. 

The story is that Steve Rogers spent all of three weeks as a single bisexual before finding the man he’d spend the rest of his life with.

The story is that Bucky Barnes was basically done with law school anyway, not that Steve would admit to any jealousy (surprising no one, there’s a lot Steve still won’t admit to).

The story is that neither of them really moved past that first, soft, close-lipped kiss, and now, it seems, they never have to.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr! I'm [ twinagonies](http://twinagonies.tumblr.com).


End file.
